A Thousand Words
by Athena356
Summary: Pictures provide memories of the good and the bad. CCGH staff reflects on lost loves and friends
1. Monsters Under My Bed

They say a picture's worth a thousand words. All my life, I heard that expression. I don't know what the hell it's supposed to mean. I have plenty of pictures. I have pictures of everyone I cared about who left me. And I'd give anything, anything at all, just for one more word with any of them.  
  
All my pictures of Bobby are with me. Most likely because we spent so much time together. We basically did everything together for a few years there. Then, the year before he got really sick, he thought he was too cool to hang out with me anymore. He made other friends in his class, and I saw him less. But he was still Bobby, and he still shared a room with me. We could have had separate rooms. My family sure had the money for it. But while I was going through my scared of the dark phase, I wanted Bobby with me, to protect me. And we stayed together after that. Even when we didn't hang out, or go places...the night was still ours. I could tell Bobby about anything. I even told him when my baseball broke the back window. Mom blamed our gardener, and neither Bobby nor I ever corrected her. Bobby protected me from bullies too. I didn't get picked on a lot, but when I did, it was bad. Bobby wasn't very big or strong, no bigger than I was anyway, but something about him made any schoolyard bully run away. He was my best friend, my double. We were identical, and when he got sick, Mom and Dad saw him in me. It made me angry. I didn't want to be seen as him, because he was sick and dying, and all I wanted was my twin back. He changed a lot when he was sick, especially in the hospital. He was awful to me, but I didn't care so much. Because he was still there. I don't tell a lot of people we were twins, because I don't want them to look at me and see Bobby. I know what he would have looked like had he lived, he would have looked like me. Bobby was going to be a baseball star, or so he said. He was my protector, the braver of the two. Odd that he became the weaker, wasting away in a hospital bed, while I became what I am today.   
  
But when Bobby died, no one was there to protect me from the dark, the bullies, the monsters hiding in my closet...they all came back when Bobby wasn't around. No matter how old I got, they stuck around. Because I didn't have my brother to protect me anymore. 


	2. The Void Within

AN: wow, I updated....been a while, sorry!~~~Thena  
  
  
Sometimes, you forget about those you lose long enough to find someone else. Sometimes you can fill the void left by them temporarily. I tried so hard to fill the void, I swear I thought I had. A wife and 2 kids was what I was missing, and I could have had it again.   
  
Maybe I was interested in her at first because she looked like Danjela. They had the same curly dark hair. If I closed my eyes and leaned my head on her shoulder, I could pretend sometimes that she was my wife, the love of my life. And I wanted to pretend so badly some days. There are times when you need back what you lost, when moving on is not an option. For those times, I had Carol. And other times, all I wanted was to move on. I had her then, too. First as my friend, then...I don't know just what she was to me. I loved her, and I think she...somewhere in her heart...loved me.   
  
And those beautiful, perfect little girls. I wanted to pick them up and never let go. They had her hair, that was for sure, and it was so easy not to see the traces of Doug in their eyes and mouths, easy to pretend they were mine. I didn't want to, or I told myself I didn't, but all I wanted was to be their father. I wanted to have my 2 babies again, darling girls and a wonderful wife. But Carol didn't want that...she was someone else's bride. When she left....I almost died.  
  
I let her be my everything for a while, she and the girls were all I needed. It was a wonderful time for me, I was finally a father again. I was in love, and I felt like I could have asked her to marry me at any time. Not that I knew she would accept, she wouldn't have. Not only did she love Doug, she wasn't ready to move on. But I could have given everything I had to her, because she wasn't exactly moving on. She was as close as it got without being...something new.   
  
When I saw Abby, there was just something about her....outside smoking, alone and guarded from the world. Her pain mirrored my pain in ways I couldn't begin to imagine. And I took from her, and she used me. We both took without wanting to give up any part of ourselves. She gave to Carter, and I had no one to give to or love. And I began to love her. I loved waking up with her and going to bed with her, and I loved the way she smiled...but she rarely smiled. We were both so guarded that we couldn't see the other's pain. And then I found men like me, men to share the pain from the war, men who sat and drank and talked about their families. And I could have had any girl like I had Abby, it wasn't fair to her, or to me. I couldn't watch her get so unhappy with me. I had liked her for the way she was, or rather, the way she wasn't. She was nothing like Danjela and Carol, she was a change, something new. This was me moving on. But it didn't work well enough. I couldn't forget Danjela. And now I'm alone again.   
  
My nights are a cold hell, full of dreams of those I lost. Jasna and Marko, Danjela, Carol, Kate, Tess, and even Abby. I framed their pictures, all of them that I had. I stare at those pictures and I wonder, maybe...But I can never fill my void. No one will replace Danjela. And I think sometimes that I should just....give up. 


End file.
